How to run iPhone emulator WITHOUT starting Xcode?
On my old Mac running Snow Leopard, I could type "ios" into spotlight and it would start up the iPhone/iPad emulator by itself.
I have since had to get a new machine running Lion. I have installed Xcode for Lion, I have installed the developer tool options from the preferences panel.
But the "ios" option is no longer there :( The only way now seems to be to run Xcode, create an empty project and then launch emulator with the run option.
I have searched and searched the intertubes and the facewebs, but nothing helps.
Does anyone know how to run only the emulator on Lion?
UPDATE: THIS IS RESPONSE TO @ike_love thread below. THAT answer is not assured to work on all Yosemite machines.
Assuming you have Xcode installed in /Applications
, then you can do this from the command line to start the iPhone Simulator:
$ open /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/iPhone\ Simulator.app
(Xcode 6+):
$ open /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/iOS Simulator.app
You could create a symbolic-link from your Desktop to make this easier:
$ ln -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/iPhone\ Simulator.app ~/Desktop
(Xcode 6+):
$ ln -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/iOS Simulator.app ~/Desktop
As pointed out by @JackHahoney, you could also add an alias
to your ~/.bash_profile
:
$ alias simulator='open /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/iPhone\ Simulator.app'
(Xcode 6+):
$ alias simulator='open /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/iOS\ Simulator.app'
(Xcode 7+):
$ alias simulator='open /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/Simulator.app'
Which would mean you could start the iPhone Simulator from the command line with one easy-to-remember word:
$ simulator
The easiest way without fiddling with command line:
- launch Xcode once.
- run ios simulator
- drag the ios simulator icon to dock it.
Next time you want to use it, just click on the ios simulator icon in the dock.